The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the second of these studies, focusing on standards for history. After the controversy surrounding the proposed "national history standards" in 1994, history has become a subject with no generally accepted national standards.…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the fifth of these studies, focusing on state standards for science. Thirty-six states presented standards for evaluation. Some states were in the process of revising standards, while others simply had no standards to present.…

When students use concept maps to construct and represent their understandings, these concept maps can be analyzed for representation of understanding from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. In this study, a qualitative approach was utilized to extend the interpretations from the quantitative analysis of students' conceptual…

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) could be a leading cause of death in American youth before the end of this century. Awareness is the starting point in preventing the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Infection from Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is absolutely preventable if people are aware of the potential for becoming infected and act…

Diagnosing cognitive errors possessed by examinees can be considered as a pattern classification problem that is designed to classify a sequential input of stimuli into one of several predetermined groups. The sequential inputs in this paper's context are item responses, and the predetermined groups are various states of knowledge resulting from…

Student modeling--the task of building dynamic models of student ability--is fraught with uncertainty, caused by such factors as multiple sources of student errors, careless errors and lucky guesses, learning and forgetting. Within the context of the Sherlock intelligent tutoring systems project, we have been experimenting with various ways of…

The 162 mathematics achievement tests cited in this bibliography are used to assess students' knowledge of various mathematical skills and operations. Many of the tests are part of large achievement batteries. Both norm reference and criterion referenced tests are included. The tests are primarily designed for preschool through grade 3. This…

In constructing a knowledge-based system, the knowledge engineer must convert rules of thumb provided by the domain expert and previously solved examples into a working system. Research in machine learning has produced algorithms that create rules for knowledge-based systems, but these algorithms require either many examples or a complete domain…

A view of teacher empowerment based on professional knowledge is presented in this paper. A new definition of "professional knowledge" for teachers is also proposed, based on teachers' knowledge of professional community, educational policy, and subject area. After a year of field study and a literature review of structural, formal, and…

This statement before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education reviews what students and their parents know about college costs and student aid, and examines the types of tuition-guarantee programs and their effectiveness. It reports that students have limited knowledge of the cost of attending different…

The Critical Decision Method (CDM) is a structured interview method for eliciting expert knowledge. The method was used in a study of computer programmers who were experts at debugging complex computer systems. Fifteen programmers who were identified by their supervisors as experts were asked to describe an experience in which their expertise made…

This study identified differences and similarities among the perceptions of adult and adolescent community members regarding drug use patterns and practices. A written questionnaire was administered to 5,128 adolescents from grades 7 through 12 in the rural inland northwest, and a similar questionnaire was administered to over 900 adults in the…

The practicum developed a four-part program to promote a community support network to meet the needs of head injured children and their families. A primary goal was to increase the membership in the head injury support group and provide a network of community support for this population. A second aim was to increase the awareness of head injuries…

A study determined whether changes in knowledge, selected attitudes, and self-examination behavior occurred among college-aged men after exposure to alternative cancer education programs. College-aged men (n=128) from two large health education classes at a mid-western university were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. The first group…

The purposes of the lecture method in higher education are considered. The advocates of lecturing claim that this approach can be used to present knowledge to students, to foster intellectual skills, and to change students' attitudes and values. Research evidence suggests that: the lecture can be effective for expounding facts and principles,…